Saturday, March 14, 2015

Iran Promises A Year’s Worth of Oil to Yemen’s Houthis

Iran will
provide the Houthis with oil for the next year, a Houthi delegation returning
from a two-week visit to Tehran announced. The delegation was headed by Saleh
al-Samad, the president of the political wing of the Houthis. (Saba/MEE, 13
March)

Iran-backed
Houthi militia seized power by force in Sanaa and dissolved the parliament in
February. Houthi’s Revolutionary Committee president Mohammed Ali al-Houthi is
now the de-facto ruler in Sanaa. But Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi
eventually escaped to southern Yemen, and has formed his own parallel
government in Aden.

Iranian
decision to supply oil to the Huthis comes after Tehran began direct daily
commercial flights to Sanaa, expected to facilitate the transfer of arms,
equipment and cash to the Houthis to maintain control of Sanaa and northern
Yemen.

The
political situation in the country is getting tense. The World Bank announced
on Friday that it was halting its activities in Yemen over security fears after
Houthi militiamen opened fire on a pro-Hadi rally attended by thousands of
people in the central city of Baida on Thursday, killing two protesters.
Meanwhile, the UN special envoy to Yemen warned of a civil war in the country.

“If there
is no agreement (between the two competing governments), the prospects are very
bleak,” Jamal Benomar, UN special advisor on Yemen, told Aljazeera. (MEE, 13
March)

On
Wednesday, the Houthis rejected a call for talks between the two governments to
begin in Riyadh, saying the Saudis were not a neutral actor in the discussion
on the country’s future.

South
Yemen could potentially break away from Sanaa. It was an independent Communist
state between 1967 to 1990, with Aden as its capital, when it reunited with the
north. Hadi, a southerner himself, has so far blocked calls for secession. But
with two competing governments in Sanaa and Aden, the impoverished country is
rapidly polarized raising fears of a wider conflict in near future.Photo
credit: Pro-Houthi supporters shout anti-Western and anti-Saudi slogans during
a rally in Sanaa; March 2015 (AFP)

This Site

Uskowi on Iran offers factual reporting and editorial on the current situation in Iran, with special emphasis on political and military developments, nuclear program, foreign policy and law enforcement. We thank you for your visit and encourage you to post your comments. You can contact us by email: nuskowi |at| gmail.com.